A cop dealing with misconduct costs within the 2024 loss of life of a Queens teenager experiencing a psychological well being disaster will dodge a disciplinary trial as a result of the NYPD did not notify the police oversight panel he had put in his papers to retire.
Police Officer Salvatore Alongi is certainly one of two cops the Civilian Criticism Evaluation Board discovered had violated division tips concerning abuse of authority and extreme use of power in a lethal March 2024 interplay with 19-year-old Win Rozario inside his household’s Ozone Park residence.
The division is required to inform the CCRB if a cop dealing with disciplinary costs has begun the method of retiring, as a way to give the watchdog company an opportunity to hurry up a disciplinary trial. That didn’t occur with Alongi, and on Thursday Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch acknowledged the error and issued a mea culpa.
“After we make a mistake, we have to acknowledge it,” Tisch stated in a press release. “We should always have notified the CCRB earlier than the Pension Board thought-about Officer Alongi’s incapacity pension in order that CCRB may take no matter steps it deemed acceptable. On account of human error, we failed to take action, and I apologize for that mistake.”
‘That is Betrayal’
The commissioner’s assertion took place an hour after Rozario’s household held a press convention outdoors Metropolis Corridor to excoriate Tisch and Mayor Zohran Mamdani for letting Alongi retire with out dealing with the music.
Rozario’s mom, Notan Eva Costa, addressed the mayor immediately, saying, “You got here to my residence and stated you’d be a special form of mayor. We really feel betrayed by you. Jessica Tisch is your police commissioner. She let Alongi retire and not using a trial. It looks as if you might be simply letting this occur.”
“This isn’t justice,” she added. “This can be a betrayal.”
Costa known as on the Division of Investigation to determine what occurred, whereas her husband, Francis Rozario, charged that the error “just isn’t negligence. I really feel it’s a deliberate coverup and corruption on the highest ranges of the NYPD.”
The mayor’s press workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A chronology launched by the NYPD put the blame on an unnamed civilian worker who the division says did not make the required notification. The worker has since been demoted and is now not concerned in dealing with disciplinary instances, based on the NYPD.
The police division stated Alongi put in his papers for a incapacity pension in August 2025 — a 12 months and 5 months after the incident and about three weeks earlier than CCRB decided that he and Officer Matthew Cianfrocco had used extreme power in the course of the encounter with Rozario.
The CCRB beneficial disciplinary motion, which the police commissioner has the power to undertake or reject. Tisch notified the 2 cops that they’d face disciplinary costs in September 2025.
At that time, the division ought to have notified CCRB that Alongi had a pending request to retire. The police pension fund may then quickly desk the pension request to present the oversight board a possibility to expedite the executive trial.
However CCRB didn’t discover out that Alongi had retired till final August, 9 weeks after his final day on the power. Dakota Gardner, a CCRB spokesperson, declined to touch upon the division’s failure over Alongi. As a substitute he famous that the trial of Officer Cianfrocco “will proceed as deliberate,” though no date has been set.
“The killing of Win Rozario was a tragedy, and our ideas are along with his household,” he added.
The afternoon of March 27, 2024, Alongi and Cianfrocco responded to a 911 name from Rozario’s mom saying that her son gave the impression to be on medication and was “appearing mad erratic.” After they appeared within the doorway of the kitchen, Rozario — standing subsequent to his mom — picked up scissors the minute he noticed the 2 officers.
In police physique digital camera footage, Officer Alongi instantly hit Rosario with a Taser. Rozario’s mom wrested the scissors away from her son and positioned them on a chair, turning to the officers to beg them to not shoot. Alongi then struck Rozario with a second Taser shot, though Rozario had no weapon in his fingers. Rozario then picked up the scissors and started to advance in direction of the cops. Cianfrocco shot him as soon as along with his service revolver, then fired 4 extra photographs as Rozario stumbled again.
Rozario was pronounced useless on the scene. Your entire encounter took two minutes.
The division wouldn’t focus on Alongi’s incapacity pension, accepted by the New York Police Pension Fund Board on Could 18. Incapacity pensions present recipients with funds equal to three-quarters of their final 12 months’s wage, moderately than 50% for normal pensions. The fund’s medical board should decide that the incapacity was job associated, however NYPD spokespersons didn’t reply to questions concerning the particular line-of-duty occasion cited to justify Alongi’s three-quarters payout.
The division stated that, since discovering the failure to inform CCRB about Alongi’s retirement request, officers have revamped their evaluate of incapacity pension functions “associated to CCRB issues to make sure that a failure of this type doesn’t happen once more.”
Now there are two layers of evaluate — a supervisor who communicates immediately with CCRB and a evaluate by the Division Advocate, an inside NYPD workplace answerable for prosecuting disciplinary instances in opposition to uniformed and civilian members of the division.
The Division Advocate will now personally notify CCRB’s govt director and chief prosecutor of any retirement software by a cop with pending CCRB issues, then personally be certain that the retirement software is tabled to present CCRB time to maneuver ahead with their case.
